Review: THE OPERA LOCOS at Sadler's Wells

So what did the audience make of this troupe of five trained singers who spoof their way through an amalgam of popular operatic crowd pleasers? The answer, in the main, seemed to be (and it kills my soul to admit it) that they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. This should be viewed as a positive, even if it suggests that when it comes to opera, the average British Joe (and Jane) have as much musical sophistication as a field of turnips.

From the get-go the troupe of gaudily attired and weirdly made-up performers blast their way through hackneyed arias tenuously connected by means of a canovaccio in the fashion of pseudo commedia dell'arte. The mugging and prat-falling ensure that everything is treated with a level of silliness and superficiality which enables (or perhaps requires?) the audience to completely ignore the aria’s original meaning, significance and most of all, context within the opera for which it was written.

Thus the hard-working players delivered an over abundance of Carmen snippets, the drinking song from La Traviata… and Figaro found his way into proceedings as we settled-in for some excruciating audience participation, which felt part holiday camp, part day nursery.

Both O mio babbino caro (from Gianni Schicchi) and Der Hölle Rache (from Die Zauberflöte) became about piercing and punching notes rather than articulating emotions. The familiarity of Delibes’ flower duet from Lakmé had heads swaying but no-one seemed to notice the imbalance in vocals which rendered it more of a drag through a bramble hedge than any Duo des fleurs I have ever heard.

Wincing and shifting awkwardly in my seat for most of the first half, I considered leaving at the interval, but having promised a review, my side of that bargain requires attendance of the whole performance, so dutifully I returned to my seat after a glass of PinotG.

Was it the wine or did things actually improve a little? There was definitely a passable Vesti la giubba (from I Pagliacci), and I most fell off my seat on discerning the opening refrain to

Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix (from Samson et Dalila). The aria was played at my father’s funeral and as such, holds a special significance for me as it will for most lovers of Saint-Saëns. Unfortunately, before the impassioned (and vocally demanding) ending, the diva had made her way off the stage and down to the front row of the stalls, where she set about comically selecting a suitor from Row A’s rag-tag options.

The rest was a thinly woven plot-line about a washed-up tenor who is no longer able to reach the third bar of [drum roll, you guessed it…] Nessun Dorma, so lives on faded dreams of past glories as he drinks from hidden bottles. When his soprano admirer stirs hopes of romance, he proffers a ring and, well, if you want to know who pairs off with whom, you’ll just have to go along and endure this twaddle for yourself. But hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Plays until 28 February.